What I Want
by Aelan Greenleaf
Summary: Jack knows what he wants. Liz knows it's wrong, but she can't help herself. And, as always, there are consequences. written for hamnapkin, prompts are "food poisoning" and "I can't do this" PART TWO
1. One Night

"_I – we – can't do this,"_ she whispered to him, but even then her words had lacked any real conviction.

His mouth was close to her throat, his lips touching the soft skin of her neck. His voice caused tiny vibrations to ripple across her flesh, eliciting a moan from deep within her. _"I know what I want, Lemon," _he murmured, his lips resuming their passage down her skin. His hands slid up her thighs, moving upwards and inwards, and she could feel her breathing becoming less controlled the higher he moved. Suddenly, his lips left her neck and pressed against hers hard, less restrained and more desperate then she'd ever imagined (and yes, she had imagined) his kisses could be.

After that, any chance at rational thought was lost, as she pressed her body against his and hoped the consequences would never come.

When she woke up and instantly felt the urge to vomit, her first conclusion as she stumbled to the bathroom was _food poisoning_. It would make sense – she had decided to eat that frozen pizza that she had forgotten on the counter (but hey, cooking it would solve any issues, right?). But three days later, when she had to lurch off of the subway to expel the contents of her stomach into a nearby trash can, she started to wonder. But what else could it be?

The answer came to her as she sat waiting at the writers' table for their meeting to start. Jack was supposed to be presenting to them a new product integration scheme that head office had approved for all network shows. She'd been the last of the writers to make it to the table; she hidden out in her office into the last possible second, sliding into her seat mere moments before Jack was to begin. Even so, she'd still felt his eyes on her as she entered, watching her take her seat without a word to anyone.

It had been two months since the night they'd slept together. And two months minus one day since they'd woken up and realized that everything had changed. He had come over after a disastrous evening with Avery; naturally, he'd responded to the relationship crisis by drinking one too many scotches and then ringing up his best friend for a healthy session of commiseration. Liz, for her part, had spent her evening watching sappy romances in a fit of middle-aged depression and had polished off a bottle of cheap wine all on her own. It was like the perfect storm of bad circumstances – both drunk, but not drunk enough to forget what they were doing, and both caught in their own versions of relationship hell.

So when Jack had gotten a little too close to her while they half-watched some cheesy 80's B-grade movie on late-night television, she'd said nothing at first. But as he touched her leg, and then her arm, and then, finally, pressed his lips against her neck, she knew it was wrong.

"_I – we – can't do this,"_ she'd whispered. He had a girlfriend.

"_I know what I want, Lemon,"_ he'd answered. She, meanwhile, had no one.

The feeling of a man against her, wanting her, needing her, was so much more than anything she'd felt in months. And as he brought his lips up against hers, crushing his mouth to hers in a desperate attempt to get closer, she'd thrown her morals to the curb and thought to hell with the consequences.

It was those consequences that dawned on her at that moment, sitting in the writers' room, waiting for Jack to start his presentation. One consequence, in particular: she was pregnant.

Pregnant with Jack Donaghy's baby.

Her breath hitched in her throat, and her hands reached out to grab the edges of the table. The other writers, who had been involved in their own conversations until this point, turned and looked at her.

"Liz? You okay?" Pete asked, eyeing her with concern. Jack, she noticed, had stopped his preparations and had also immediately turned his attention to her.

She attempted to crack a smile. "Oh, I just forgot to PVR Top Chef. Ughhh..." she answered lamely.

"Right," said Pete, rolling his eyes at her.

"Shall we get this meeting moving?" Liz stated, eager to distract herself from the realization she had just come to.

"Yeah, of course," Pete replied, standing up from the table and addressing the writers. "Right, everyone, we've got something new going..."

Liz couldn't pay attention to Pete no matter how hard she tried. Was she really pregnant? With her best friend's baby? Her best friend _who has a girlfriend?_ Her hands, still on the edge of the table, gripped on even more tightly, her anxiety rising. Almost subconsciously, she found herself turning slightly to look at Jack across the table.

As her eyes moved over, she found him already looking at her, his blue eyes etched with concern. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it a moment later, deciding against it. They just continued to stare at each other, while the meeting progressed without them.

_What now?_ Liz couldn't help to think to herself. _What next?_


	2. Two Months

That evening, she simply cannot fall asleep.

The meeting had run long, and she'd noticed Jack attempting to make his way over to her office afterwards, but she'd yawned a little too enthusiastically and claimed fatigue as her escape route. He'd simply given her a long, uncomfortable look before he wished her goodnight even as she was moving past him and towards the door. She hadn't been able to face him before, when it'd simply been a single mistake, but now... now she couldn't help but feel the anxiety pooling in her gut every time she was around him.

On her way home she'd stopped for donuts and three home pregnancy tests; she'd managed to eat three quarters of the box of pastries before she'd even stepped through her door. After a marathon of water and juice she'd waited impatiently to see the results one three tiny plastic sticks.

All positive.

This alone, however, didn't really prove anything. Though she'd been attempting to eat less of the cheesy Mexican delights that had caused her false pregnancy tests the first time around, it was possible that enough of the lovely bull testosterone had entered her system and caused everything to go all wonky on her.

A voice at the back of her head, whispering incessantly, is what keeps her awake. _It's different this time..._ some part of her murmurs conspiratorially, and she can't help but listen.

* * *

Three days later, she ducks out of a meeting with Toofer and Frank to head down to her doctor's office. He'd called and left a message for her to come back in and "have a chat". When she'd heard that carefully worded statement, she knew it wasn't the same as last time. This wasn't Sabor de Soledad induced. This was the real thing.

He knocks once on the door and then enters, smiling at her as he comes into the room. She still has her jacket on and is clutching at her purse, knuckles white with anticipation and nerves.

"Congratulations, Elizabeth," he tells her, grinning all the more. "You are pregnant."

She simply nods, unable to even form the sounds for the single syllable _yes_.

He continues, undeterred by her continuing silence. "Everything looks good at the moment, you're probably about seven to eight weeks along. I'll get you to meet up with my receptionist; she can schedule you in for follow-ups as well as an ultrasound in the next few weeks. Do you have any questions at this point, Elizabeth? I've got some standard information here in a package for you; it covers dietary needs, lifestyle changes, risk factors, and so on."

She manages to pull it together long enough to attempt a lopsided smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Th-thank you, Doctor Morena. I, uh, I think I'll just take the package for now, I still need to wrap my head around this whole baby situation," she says, gesturing vaguely down towards the direction of her abdomen.

He smiles at her and hands her the package, as he takes her hand in his and wishes her congratulations yet once more. She smiles back at him on autopilot, while her mind races away to a flashback of that night eight weeks ago, when he'd pulled her close and kissed her warmly, holding her in his arms as he made his way further and further down-

She shakes her head abruptly, banishing those thoughts to the deep recesses of her mind. She grabs her purse and thanks the doctor once again, making sure to stop in the reception area to make the necessary arrangements for future check-ups and appointments. The receptionist smiles at her in that cutesy, loving way that comes with the announcement of a pregnancy, and Liz can't help but cringe, knowing that this and more is what eventually awaits her at 30 Rock.

She goes back to work that afternoon, saying nothing to anyone, constantly tortured by the vision of a blue eyed baby with dark hair and pale skin, smiling up at her from her own arms.

* * *

Two days after the confirmation of her impeding motherhood, she's summoned to a meeting on the 52nd floor by Jonathan, who scowls at her in his customary way. She barely spares him a glance, her heart beating faster and faster as she approaches the door. She'd been up here a few times in the last two months, although frequently accompanied by Pete under the guise of needing someone for artistic and creative support. She'd managed just fine then, avoiding discussions of anything outside of their professional relationship, all the while attempting to ignore the frustration in his eyes.

This time, however, is the first time she will have seen him since learning of her so-called "delicate condition". She knows that she is a fairly terrible liar, and can't help to hope against hope that he simply doesn't see right through her.

Taking a breath, she raps her knuckles against the polished wood of the door, and waits to hear an acknowledgement of her presence. She hears a muffled "Come in" from the other side of the barrier, and she turns the knob with her heart in her throat.

She enters the room quickly, leaving the door open behind her. He doesn't say anything about it, which makes her feel a little better. Door open means work conversations. Work conversations mean little to no personal life discussions. Which means she can run away from this for yet another day.

'Would you mind closing the door, Lemon?" he asks her, not looking up from the paperwork on his desk.

_Nertz. Spoke too soon. _

She closes the door somewhat reluctantly, and then makes her way over to his desk. When he still doesn't look up from his paperwork, she sits down at the chair opposite his own, and tries to make herself comfortable.

"So," he says, without looking up from his papers, "how are we going to deal with this?"

Immediately, her stomach sinks. "Deal with what? The show? Yeah, I know, Tracy's been flubbing his lines lately, but we've got Grizz on it, he's worked out a sort of Pavlov's Bell situation, where Tracy gets rewarded with a piece of candy every time he gets a line right, so I mean that's-"

"Elizabeth," he interrupts sharply, and she shuts up at both his tone and the use of her full first name.

He looks up at her then, his blue eyes peering deeply into her own. "It's been two months. I want to make sure you're okay."

_In the morning, she'd woken up to find him passed out beside her, face down in her bed. Her head still swimming, she'd looked over at the clock and remarked the early hour (5:14am), which was (unfortunately) way too early for her to start to her day. But she knew she couldn't face being here with him, with both of them awake, in the light of a full morning and in the face of total sobriety. So she'd stumbled over to the pile of clothes in her bathroom and picked out a few items, trying her best to stay quiet while she fumbled with the buttons on her cardigan and zipped up her jeans._

_She'd ducked out of the apartment and headed to work extremely early that morning (the bus was remarkably free of somewhat unsavoury characters for once), and made a point of being tied up in meetings for the rest of the day (and the day after that, and the day after that...)_

She brings herself back to the present moment, finally faced with a reality she'd been trying so hard to avoid. "I'm fine."

He only stares at her.

"I mean, it's all good. It's – it was – just a mistake. We can pretend it never happened! Like the time Frank slept with Jenna. Oh boy. I should not have brought that –"

"Liz," he says softly, and once again, she falls silent. "I am very sorry. I should not have come over like that. We are boss-employee, mentor-mentee, and I took advantage of that. Perhaps, with time, we can come back to the same working relationship we had before and –"

"I'm seeing someone," she blurts out, completely out of left field. The stress of the moment had finally gotten to her, and she had to do something, to avoid this newfound path of reconciliation he seemed determined to put them on. Plus, it wasn't a total lie, she was "seeing" someone new – except the someone in question was a ball of quickly dividing cells located in her uterus. But, hey, isn't that just semantics?

"Oh," he says softly, after a brief silence. "Well, my congratulations, Lemon. Is it someone I know?"

_I guess you could say that,_ she thinks to herself, but out loud she replies with a firm "No."

A long, heavy quiet settles in between them, and eventually she grows so anxious that she finds herself rising to her feet. "If that's all...?" she asks, still avoiding full eye contact.

"That's it," he replies, a neutral expression having returned to his face.

She's at the door before he finishes speaking, rushing out past Jonathan and out towards the elevator in a matter of seconds. Groaning to herself, she slumps against the back of the empty elevator car, covering her face with her hands. First a more-than-real baby and now a completely-fabricated-boyfriend. What next?

(And yet, all she can really think about is the fleeting look on his face when she'd unceremoniously announced her involvement with someone else, the way his eyes had shifted and his usually composed exterior had faltered, all too briefly...)


End file.
